The future revolves around a world without boundaries that will ultimately lead to a "Made in the World" brand. The world business champions are seizing excellence wherever it is available, and weaving networks of international talent. They’re become globally integrated business communities. As the number of customers, especially among the new wealthy classes - from China to India, from Turkey to Brazil, increases the "Made in the World" gives birth to many centres "in" Excellence (from design to logistics). Entrepreneurs must act to ensure they can secure a strong foothold in this new business environment.
The Industrial Revolution highlighted how commerce and new technology first became intertwined in coffee houses, which empirically proved the Abbé Galiani’s (Chieti, 2 December 1728 – Naples, 30 October 1787) famous assertion that markets are conversations. The Italian entrepreneurial miracle following the Second World Ward had its cradle in the coffee shops. Playing cards in cafés instead of playing by business cards in formal debates, blue collars and technicians acquired some rudimentary knowledge of entrepreneurship. The chain of entrepreneurial ideas had a life form whose behaviour was organized from the bottom up – from the shop floors and the cafés, inextricably linked to one another.
That time is gone. Vocationally skilled, factory-driven entrepreneurs give way to tertiary educated, science-led entrepreneurs. Complex iterations, feedback loops, and inter- relationships between knowledge builders at the convergent spaces of sciences mould the chain of entrepreneurial ideas. They live symbiotically, conveying the Lemuel Gulliver’s profile of a would-be entrepreneur who confers a primary role to intensive and laborious interactions with peers from different cultural and business background. They take advantage from the multiplier effect of sharing – “I am going to use my idea in my field of use, and you are welcome to use it in your own field”. They build upon one another’s strength, one another’s competence, adding value and passing it on. If their ideas succeed and the startups are successful, they become angel investors and early-stage capitalists for the purpose of providing seed capital to the next generation of entrepreneurs and startups. And so the chain of ideas does not break down and the cycle of innovation continues.
